Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Roman Catholic Church condemned embryonic stem cell research and artificial fertilization in a sweeping bioethics document that puts Pope Benedict XVI at odds with U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

The Vatican today released “Dignitas Personae,” Latin for “The Dignity of a Person,” a 32-page document starting with the principle that “the human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception.” The statement said it was “expressly approved” by the pope.

In 2001, President George W. Bush said U.S. research funds could be used to support embryonic stem cell research only if the cells existed at that time. “Dignitas” appears to oppose any embryonic stem cell research, even under the Bush limitations.

Obtaining embryonic stem cells “invariably causes the death of the embryo and is consequently illicit,” the Vatican said in the statement. Using them from any source “presents serious problems from the standpoint of cooperation in evil and scandal.”

Stem cells taken from embryos are self-starters with the power to make virtually any tissue or organ in the body, from blood vessels to the brain. While research from Japan has shown that skin cells can be provoked to behave the same way, scientists have said research on embryonic stem cells is vital to understanding the potential, and the risks, of using the cells medically.

Currently, the government funds research on a limited number of embryonic stem cell colonies, or “lines,” all of which date from 2001 or earlier. Scientists, saying many of those cells are difficult to grow and manipulate, are using private funds to pursue research on newer lines of embryonic stem cells grown at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in other laboratories.

Obama’s Position

Geron Corp., Advanced Cell Technology Inc., and other companies are developing treatments based on embryonic stem cells. President-elect Obama, whose inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 20, has signaled that he may reverse the Bush policy to expand research in the area.

The pope, who leads more than 1 billion Catholics around the world, said Nov. 5 that he prays God will “enlighten” Obama. He said he hopes Obama will “favor human growth and dignity with respect to essential human and spiritual values.”

The Vatican says its long-awaited document takes into account scientific findings.

The pope’s views have influenced law and medicine in Italy, which legalized some abortions in 1978. The Vatican, the Roman Catholic seat situated within Rome, armed a successful fight against legalizing the RU-486 early stage abortion pill in Italy and used its clout to scuttle a 2005 referendum proposing to relax rules on surrogate motherhood and stem-cell research.

In-Vitro Fertilization

The Vatican also condemned in-vitro fertilization in today’s document, saying “the experience of recent years has shown that in all techniques the number of embryos sacrificed is extremely high” and hence violates “the sacred and inviolable character of every human life from its conception until its natural death.”

Human cloning is also a crime because “it seeks to give rise to a new human being without a connection to the act of reciprocal self-giving between the spouses, and more radically, without any link to sexuality,” said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees Catholic doctrine and issued the document.

To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net; John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 12, 2008 12:25 EST